The invention generally relates to mechanized and/or automatic food-process line equipment and, more particularly, to a pivoting and reversibly expanding-contracting transfer conveyor for food process lines.
A non-limiting example of a food process line might comprise the following series of machines in a line. Let's assume that the food product is chicken tender pieces which are going to pre-dusted with spices and perhaps flour, dipped in batter and bread-coated twice, then fried. Hence the given food process line might comprise the following series of machines:
a loader of (typically raw) food product;
a transfer conveyor (ie., the first);
a tumbling pre-dust coating machine;
a transfer conveyor (the second);
a batter coating machine;
a tumbling bread crumb coating machine;
a transfer conveyor (the third);
another batter coating machine;
another tumbling bread crumb coating machine;
a transfer conveyor (the fourth); and
a fryer (and likely a freezing and packaging process too).
In the above example, there are four transfer conveyors. In this example, each transfer conveyor is attended by perhaps six workers (eg., three on each side) who ‘style’ and ‘grade’ the food product on the transfer conveyor as the food product transits along.
In the industry, ‘styling’ refers to (among things) spreading the individual pieces of the food product evenly across the transfer table such that the individual pieces are not touching another piece and are otherwise organized in a relatively neat array. ‘Grading’ means picking out pieces which do not meet a quality or specification criteria (eg., too big, too little) and discarding the piece.
It will be noticed in the above example that, the transfer conveyors follow dry coating processes, not wet ones (eg., the two batter coating machines). There is a preference to not have the workers grade and style product immediately after a wet coating processes, because it is too messy, but instead just do it after dry coating processes.
One aspect of operating food process lines is that, since the output of the line is headed out into the public food supply, the food process line is subject to various inspectors including government inspectors (typically USDA). If the food process line is found to fail an inspection, all the food product outputted by that food process line is likely to be subject to recall:—or that is, all the food product outputted since the last washing of the food process line.
So if the food process line is washed once a week, and the failure determination is made at the end of the week, then a whole week's worth of output product has to be recalled.
In contrast, if the food process line is washed nightly, then the worst case scenario is that any recall will be limited to one day's worth of output product.
Hence, in choosing how frequently to wash, there is a balance of equities such as follows:                run the food process line for as long as practical to optimize run time vs. down time (ie., down time as for performing washing operations);        
versus,                wash frequently to reduce the risk of having a huge recall.        
It is an object of the invention to provide improvements for decreasing the downtime for washing operations, thereby increasing the appeal of washing frequently.
A number of additional features and objects will be apparent in connection with the following discussion of preferred embodiments and examples.